


Give Me Your Hand (Or, Courfeyrac Goes to the Ball)

by crazyinjune



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Multi, and combeferre makes everything better all the time, courfeyrac is upset, enjolras should think before he speaks, grantaire is the best dancer when he is drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyinjune/pseuds/crazyinjune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Enjolras,”  Combeferre warns, and Enjolras falls silent. Courfeyrac abruptly crosses behind him and takes his coat out from behind the chair, jerking Enjolras violently, and strides quickly and angrily towards the door. Combeferre opens his mouth to halt him but before he can speak Courfeyrac wheels around in the doorway.</p><p>“I apologize, but I do not believe the two of you would want my company tonight, seeing as I would only have tales of my bourgeois events,” he says coldly, “Goodnight, messieurs.” He takes care to slam the door on his way out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Me Your Hand (Or, Courfeyrac Goes to the Ball)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on that one line in the brick where marius gets dragged to the ball by Courfeyrac and co. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Nights like these Enjolras and Combeferre do not feel the need to speak at all, only work in contented silence as Enjolras writes a new pamphlet to be handed out the next week in the streets as Combeferre sits across from him at the table completing and correcting the old one. They keep writing and not talking, past the yellow sun filtering into reds and purples and gold until it finally sets into darkness and Combeferre has to get up and light candles, past the toll of the bells when it becomes ten o’clock, eleven, past midnight. The only sound is the scratching of pen nibs and the occasional frustrated growl from Enjolras’s throat as he crumples his papers and starts over for the third, fourth, fifth time.

 

This silence is punctured at nearly one o’clock in the morning with the arrival of Courfeyrac.

 

He bursts through the door with his key to their rooms that neither Enjolras nor Combeferre can remember giving him, but that he has always had anyways. Placing his hat on the table, his coat across the back of Enjolras’s chair, and loosening his cravat he cries to them “My friends, you are at work at this hour! A pity you were not with me this night, I’ve just had an excellent time.”

 

Combeferre puts his pen down and gives Courfeyrac a smile despite the interruption as Enjolras looks up from his own work and stretches before saying through slightly pursed lips “And where have you been?”

 

“There was a ball at Sceaux tonight, do you not remember? Bossuet and Grantaire accompanied me. I even persuaded our poor Monsieur Marius to come, but he was in a melancholy mood all night and walked home while the night was still young, if you’ll believe.”

 

“You’ll not join him at your own lodgings?” Combeferre says airily, abandoning his papers altogether and swinging his legs around so he is straddling his chair backwards to face Courfeyrac, who leans against the bedpost.

 

Courfeyrac runs his hand through his hair, mussing the curls that had been flattened from his hat. “I’m afraid my my thirst for companionship has not yet slackened. And I must regale _someone_ with the tales of Grantaire’s dancing.”

 

Enjolras finally raises his eyes. “Grantaire’s dancing? It would not surprise me if he was too drunk to dance at all.”

 

Courfeyrac laughter fills the room, pushing into every corner as if the candles are no longer the only source of light. “Well then it will surprise you to know of his skill, Enjolras! One would not think that Grantaire could ever charm a woman  but I swear to you both, despite drinking a full bottle of wine, he was the best dancer there. Every lady I myself danced with could not keep her eyes off of _him_!”

 

Combeferre is laughing now too, but Enjolras’s expression has gone sour. “If Grantaire spent less time drinking and going to bourgeois balls he may perhaps be talented in a way that is useful,” he pronounces, going back to his papers and pressing harder with his pen than entirely necessary.

 

Courfeyrac pushes himself off the bedpost. “...bourgeois events?” he says acidly, all trace of laughter gone from his face.

 

“Of course! These dances, these balls, all frivolous pastimes of the bourgeoisie with no regard for the poor—”

 

“ _Enjolras,”_ Combeferre warns, and Enjolras falls silent. Courfeyrac abruptly crosses behind him and takes his coat out from behind the chair, jerking Enjolras violently, and strides quickly and angrily towards the door. Combeferre opens his mouth to halt him but before he can speak Courfeyrac wheels around in the doorway.

 

“I apologize, but I do not believe the two of you would want my company tonight, seeing as I would only have tales of my _bourgeois events,”_ he says coldly, “Goodnight, _messieurs._ ” He takes care to slam the door on his way out.

 

The silence he leaves behind is no longer comfortable. Combeferre sits back heavily in his chair and sighs as he takes off his spectacles and pinches the bridge of his nose. Enjolras cannot remember standing up but he is standing, staring at the door as his papers slide off his lap and flutter towards the floor.

 

“I have made him angry.”

 

“He will come back soon.”

 

“How can you know?”

 

Combeferre nods his head towards the table. “He has left his hat.”

 

Enjolras chuckles in spite of himself. Courfeyrac would not dare cross the streets of Paris for long with his head bare. He begins to pick up his papers, intent on resuming his work again when Combeferre speaks.

 

“He will come back, Enjolras, but you have been unnecessarily cruel to him.”

 

Enjolras stops midway towards curling his fingers once more around his pen. “I am tired, Combeferre. I do not wish to speak about this.”

 

“Enjolras, look at me.” Enjolras looks. Combeferre gets up and goes to kneel in front of Enjolras’s chair and takes his hands. “You are tired, I know. It is late. That is not an excuse for not acknowledging you have said something in poor taste.”

Enjolras jerks his hands away with a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “You do not understand my meaning, Combeferre!” Rocking back onto his heels, Combeferre folds his hands on top of his knees and watches as Enjolras gets up and begins to helplessly pace the room. Saying nothing, he lets Enjolras wring his hands and pace until finally he falls onto the bed, defeated.

 

He stares at his hands, refusing to meet Combeferre’s eyes as he speaks. “Courfeyrac and Bossuet and Grantaire and even that Pontmercy went to the ball tonight.”

 

“Which you called bourgeois.” Combeferre prompted.

 

Enjolras sighs and still speaks to his hands. “Yes. Which I called bourgeois, and now I have hurt Courfeyrac. I cannot afford to hurt our friends, Combeferre. The revolution needs them.” He halted. “... _I_ need them.”

 

“Then why did you say it in the first place?”

 

A rueful smile. “I _am_ tired. It was an unkind slip of the tongue. You know I do not take pleasure in things such as balls and dances, I do not understand their appeal. And there is so much work to be done. But of course, to those who are not me, a night at the Sceaux is infinitely more appealing than planning what could be a fruitless revolution, is it not?” He looks at Combeferre sideways. “Perhaps you would prefer to spend your time in a library or a lecture hall?

 

Combeferre chuckles. “I do also enjoy dancing, Enjolras. But you fear something you need not.” Enjolras looks at him properly now, and Combeferre once more crosses to him to take his hands, and this time Enjolras lets him. “You know what we all care about above all else is bringing this country and it’s people into the light, you _must_ know this. And we’d follow you to the ends of the earth to do so. Myself, Courfeyrac, Joly, Prouvaire, Grantaire, all of us!”

 

“ _Grantaire_ would not—”

 

“Grantaire would.” Combeferre says quietly.

 

Enjolras opens his mouth to say something then closes it. Combeferre is about to suggest they abandon any pretext of going back to work and go to bed when the door creaks open and Enjolras is up with a flash.

 

“Courfeyrac, _please_ forgive me my friend, I am not in the right spirits and I have been terrible and you do not deserve such treatment and—” Courfeyrac cuts off what is beginning to be a rushed tirade with a tight embrace and a light kiss dropped onto Enjolras’s forehead.

 

“Enjolras,” he says, pulling back with a laugh. “I only did come back for my hat but you were forgiven before I had even crossed the street when I left!” Softly now, and hugging him again he says into Enjolras’s hair, “You are always always always forgiven.”

 

Combeferre is beaming. “It is late, Courfeyrac. Would you go back home now?”

 

“Ahh...no, actually.” Courfeyrac has now fetched his beloved hat from the table and twirls it in his hands. “My original intent in coming was not to leave. I have of late misliked...sleeping alone. I find it entirely unfair that the two of you get to share a bed every night while I lodge with Pontmercy. I fear if I asked that favor of him, poor Marius would flee Paris altogether out of embarrassment!”

 

“He is a strange fellow, it must be admitted,” laughs Enjolras, “But you are always welcome to sleep here, Courfeyrac.”

 

Courfeyrac has already rid himself of his waistcoat and cravat and is stretched out on the bed with a contented humming noise.

 

“I suppose this may be an opportune time to tell you, Enjolras,” says Combeferre as he begins to blow out candles, “that I am going to the perfectly non-bourgeois theatre with Prouvaire tomorrow night.”

 

“The theatre!” cries Courfeyrac, hoisting himself up onto one elbow, “And not invite me!”

 

“You did not invite me to come to the ball with you.”

 

“You are a terrible ball companion. To simply dance with one lady and then engage in philosophical discussion all night, indeed!”

 

“And you cannot resist providing your own commentary in the middle of a show at the theatre. Now go to sleep.”

 

Courfeyrac falls back onto the mattress. “Will you not join me?”

 

This time it is Enjolras who answers “Of course, my friend. We will join you soon enough.”

 

They awake the next morning together in a tangle of sheets and speeches and limbs, as the early morning Paris sunlight streaks through the window. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr! crazyinjune.tumblr.com xx


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